


With A Bullet For the Bad Guys

by warmommy



Category: Fury (2014)
Genre: F/M, Grady is a dick, Then Grady is not a dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-03-02 13:50:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13319493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warmommy/pseuds/warmommy
Summary: It became slowly more and more apparent that Boyd was watching Grady fall in love. She had pulled the thorn out of the lion's paw.Boyd just hoped beyond hope that he wasn't going to watch his friend's heart get crushed, too.





	1. Preface

Grady was on one, again. Boyd was sitting underneath the oak tree with his bible when it began, and this time, he decided his studying was more important than trying to get his best friend under control. That farm boy had been going on like this for a few weeks now, and even Boyd was beginning to lose his patience. His sympathy for the real target of Grady's rampages only grew.

It wasn't her fault, poor girl. Grady didn't want a woman on the crew, and no matter how many times Don or Boyd himself tried to get it through that it was none of their decision, he was dead set on not listening. The fighting between Don and Grady got pretty intense, for a while there, especially after Don caught Angharad with tears in her eyes as she replaced some fuses.

Yeah, Angharad. It was a mouthful, and _none_  of them could say it correctly. Gordo tried every chance he spoke to her, even though his accent made it even more difficult. Don said they needed to find her war name soon. Grady never even attempted to say her name. He never spoke to the woman directly, even if he did speak about her, loudly, disparagingly, where she could hear, all the time.

Right now, Grady was shouting, kicking at shit, fumbling with equipment. Don was nearby, smoking, and Angharad was trying to stoke their little fire back to life to heat food and some coffee.

"Boyd!"

He looked up when Don called his name. His sergeant was pointing at the girl.

"Watch them. If Grady gets too close to her, blow his fuckin' brains out, all right?"

So Boyd went on, studying with one eye, the other on them. After a while, Grady stomped a ways off to himself, still mumbling and muttering under his breath.

His hands were bothering him again, Boyd noticed, and mentally notched that off as a reason for his particularly foul mood. Grady was pulling and twisting at his fingers, which had taken years of abuse, as a loader and the main mechanic they had on crew.

"Grady?"

Boyd nearly dropped his bible to his knees when he heard her address the Arkansan.

"What?" Grady snarled.

Angharad walked over to him slowly, holding out one of her hands. "Let me see your hands. Your fingers are jammed."

"Well, no fuckin' shit they're jammed, lady! I do my fuckin' job, ain't nobody ever needed you on this tank. _I do it_. Me."

Boyd held his breath. He didn't really believe that Grady would put his hands on her, at least not much, but the moment was getting tense and he didn't know where Don had went.

Angharad stayed where she was while Grady cussed and ranted and stomped and kicked around, again. After a few minutes of this, however, Grady finally stuck one of his blackened hands out close enough for her to reach.

It was with utmost caution and gentleness that she touched him. Boyd saw Grady flinch at such careful contact, and he smiled. The key to getting around Grady's self-destructive drive to destroy every relationship he had with the world around him was to have the patience of Job, and to be kind. Grady Travis had grown up in the pit of the Depression with six brothers and sisters and parents that had no time for him, in a world that didn't seem to want him there, and the only sense of belonging that boy had ever had was in their Sherman.

It was almost perfect symbolism, Boyd mused. This big, dark creature beside this small one made of light. Grady grew quiet. He was watching her so close, with such suspicion. The scrutiny flared his broken nose. Angharad pulled gently at the man's fingers, rolled the joints bit by bit, and she talked to him so soft and quiet that Boyd couldn't make out a word. By the end, Grady was smiling and stooped his shoulders, looking ashamed. He thanked her, and she told him that he was welcome and then she walked away.

Boyd smiled himself and picked up his bible again.

* * *

 

He began to keep a little mental log of the interactions he noticed. 

  
At night, when they were sitting around another itty bitty fire, forty miles away from the one they'd left behind, Grady tried several times to correctly pronounce Angharad's name. Instead of getting frustrated and angry by his many failed attempts, Grady smiled and said Don was right, she really did need a new name.

* * *

  
Grady hovered around whenever Angharad tried to do anything about their ubiquitous 'mechanical failures'. He would pace, his hands in his pockets, but he never got too far away. Boyd shared a bit of the joy he saw on Grady's face when she asked him for his help.

* * *

Grady was inspecting the tracks, just a routine check, and he crouched down in front of them, asked Angharad to take a look, and slung his arm around her shoulder when she'd joined him. 

* * *

  
Back at base for the first time, Don gave the usual orders.

"Gordo, stock up on water and gas. Boyd, check out those 'mechanical failures'. Grady, rations and ammo. Angharad--"

"Hey Don, let 'er come with me, she don't know her way around."

Don just shrugged. "Fine."

Boyd grinned and watched Grady lead her away from the rig, gesticulating wildly with his hands as he spoke to her.

* * *

  
It became slowly more and more apparent that Boyd was watching Grady fall in love. She had pulled the thorn out of the lion's paw.

Boyd just hoped beyond hope that he wasn't going to watch his friend's heart get crushed, too.


	2. Chapter One

Gordo was the first to call her Jazz, even if it wasn’t jazz that they’d caught her singing. They were arguing inside the tank, snapping at each other like tired children, when all of a sudden, Don and Gordo went silent.

“What?” Grady edged closer to Don. “What’s going on? Where they at?”

Don held his hand up to silence him, a slow smile crawling into his features. He tapped his helmet flap around the ear and motioned for Grady to pull on his, then nudged Boyd to do the same.

“I’ll be with you to change your name to mine. One day in May, I’ll come and say ‘Happy the bride that the sun shines on today’– _Fuck_!–What a wonderful wedding there will be– _God fucking damn it_ –What a wonderful day for you and me…Church bells will chime…You will be mine– _cocksucker_ –In apple blossom time.”

Grady leaned back slowly against his usual spot and crossed his arms over his chest, grinning. None of them said a thing to disturb her. Every man realised she’d forgotten to switch off her intercom, but none was ready for the song to end, just yet. Angharad had gone outside to mess around with the antenna and, although each of them had heard her singing underneath her breath at some point, this was clear and beautiful, sounded just like a record. Even though the melody and words were punctuated by her frustrated swearing, Boyd, Grady, Don, and Gordo all relaxed where they were, all fighting forgotten for the moment.

“Hey there, Jazz!” Gordo piped up when she went quiet. “What was that one called? Something to do with apple blossoms?”

The sounds of her moving around outside halted, and her face appeared in the hatch. She gaped at all of them, then pulled her helmet off and tossed it at Don. “You’re a bunch of bastards if I ever did see a one.”

“I like that. Jazz.” Don tucked her helmet under his arm and laughed quietly. “Beats the hell out of trying to say Ong-harr-rod. You re-wire that line, Jazz?”

It just stuck, and nobody remembered what they’d been arguing about for once. She groused, letting them know with strong language and repetition that she did not appreciate their stunt at all. With the radios uplinked again, Don gave the go-ahead for Gordo to start rolling, and Jazz snatched her helmet back and went to her seat.

“Hey, Jazz!” Gordo reached blindly to shove her shoulder. “Would you sing another song for a chocolate bar?”

“Nah,” Don said from above, perched where he was happiest. “Nah, it’d have to be something bigger than that. Box of K-rations?”

She laughed miserably and covered her head with her arms. “I swear to you all, I  _will_  shoot myself.”

Of course, she never made that mistake again, but that never stopped them from trying. Even Don didn’t figure it would be any risk, if they weren’t rolling over hostiles. It wouldn’t cut any outside signals, and it’d keep the rest of them shut up a while. Jazz insisted that she didn’t know any other songs, and that she never wanted to see another apple blossom for as long as she lived.

That night, when she’d already retired (Don made her sleep inside the tank, away from all of them), Grady was smiling all by himself, ass to the grass, and he decided it was time to keep Boyd from getting any rest.

“Hey.” He stroked his friend’s mustache, and giggled when his hand got stung away like a bee. “Why do you reckon she’s so bashful? She sings pretty.”

“Why don’t you ask her that, Grady?” Boyd slapped his hand again.

“Aww, what’s the matter? You need a cuddle?” Grady backed away, smiling and laughing again. “I don’t remember the last time I heard real music. Do you?”

“I sang you Old Rugged Cross the other day, after you bitched and bitched about it for fifteen damn minutes,” Boyd snapped.

“I said  _real_  music. Not shit that just makes your lips move.” Grady was looking skyward, up at the swirls of stars and the cloud-covered moon. It was his watch, and he knew if he kept bumping his gums, he’d have more than just Boyd chewing his ass, so he decided to let it go for the night.

Feet hit the ground behind him. “Don’t reach for your knife, it’s just me.”

Grady wrapped his arm around the backs of her knees and hugged her legs. “Hey, what you doin’ up? You ought to be inside.”

“I’m not pissing in that tank! And I’d rather be out here, trust me. I spend every night camped out in every  _smell_  the four of you have made throughout the day.” Jazz had her MG slung over her shoulder. She yawned. “I’m dead on my feet, though. Dying of embarrassment takes a lot out of you.”

He shook his head. “Ain’t nothing to be embarrassed about. I know every embarrassing thing ever happened on our rig, and that ain’t one of 'em. It was nice, that’s all. We never get the good kind of surprise. It’s better than real dying any day, I’ll tell you.”

With a soft hum, Jazz scratched the top of his head and took off for the trees. “If you don’t see me in, like, two minutes, I expect you’ll come running!”

“Goddamn, I forgot how fast women piss.”

“Yeah, you won’t now.”

When her swift little footsteps faded, Boyd groaned. “Damn it, Grady.”

The other man jumped. “Oh shit, you’s still awake?”

“Grady, if you love her so damn much, do something about it so the rest of us can get some quiet and some fucking sleep.” Boyd rolled over to face away from him and the glow of the small fire. “Don’t talk to me. I mean it.”

Grady unfolded his long legs and gazed up at the stars again. “Boyd, don’t be dumb. There ain’t nothing like that for me, not in this lifetime.”

Bible squinted his eyes shut and groaned. “Oh, sweet baby Jesus.”


	3. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very good friend of mine helped me with the Spanish for this chapter and she is wonderful and my queen <3

Grady realised that what he was doing looked a little bit strange, but he stayed right where he was, doing exactly what he’d promised to do. Shoulders hunched, fidgeting with a screwdriver in his filthy hands, he was acting as a secondary door on the outdoor shower units for Jazz. It was usually the lady soldiers that wanted to use them, but any tall fella could walk by and see down the gap in the door, getting a pretty good view. He just couldn’t abide that happening to Jazz.

The water shut off and he passed her a towel over his shoulder, keeping his eyes forward. “Feelin’ better, Jazz?”

“I feel like I got nine out of ten layers of gross off of me,” she confirmed in an affable tone. “Could you pass my clothes, please?”

He sent the bundle over next. It was pretty hard not to picture her, and he was pretty hard, in spite of trying his best not to. Well, maybe not his best, but a good effort. It would be all right. When Jazz got out, he’d just hope in and use the damn thing for what everyone else did (which he didn’t have the heart to tell her about, just made sure the water ran for a good minute before she stepped in).

Grady missed a lot of what she was saying, but caught the tail end of seeing him after the movie.

“What?” he called after her retreating form.

She turned and looked over her squeaky clean shoulder. “They’re showing that movie in the Hall. I have to replace a whole circuit panel, so I’ll be at home. I was just saying I’ll see you afterward.”

“Oh,” he mumbled. “Okay!”

His sexual imagination was underdeveloped since going overseas. There was almost no sort of privacy, at all, and the only women he was ever with were whores, so what did it matter anyway? Except it did matter, now, because he wanted to picture Jazz, but he didn’t want to treat her bad. He  _couldn’t_  think of her like other girls he’d slept with, because she was so real, so sweet to him, gentle, and there was no way to think of her in a demeaning manner. Just imagining himself with her was almost too damn degrading for her.

He wanted her more and more by the minute, even when she wasn’t around, which, admittedly, was rare. He wasn’t good at hiding himself, was always the type of fool that kept his heart on his sleeves, and it had to be kinda obvious, how much he admired Jazz, how she was pure magic in a world gone sideways.

With zero interest in whatever film was being shown and all interest in the whole world in getting some precious time alone with the girl of his dreams, Grady tracked through crusty mud without any engine oil on his face, for once. He smiled when he saw her again, but his heart damn near shattered when the person beside her put his arm around her and kissed her.

Grady turned around, his heart kicking up a fit in his chest, feeling all sorts of hurt and angry that he didn’t have a right to feel–

And then he  _heard_   _it_.

“I told you to leave me alone! Get  _off_  of me! Go away!”

Grady turned back around and that son of a bitch was unzipping Jazz’s coat, and he saw nothing but pure red. He was on the fucker in what felt like half a second, jerking him down and shoving him into the dirt. “Get the  _fuck_  offa my tank! What the hell you think you was gonna do,  _Huh_? See her? That is a  _lady_!”

He kicked him in the lower back and the jaw, and then Jazz’s sweet little arms wrapped around his broad chest, and she tried pulling him back.

“Don’t get in trouble! Don’t hurt him bad, Grady, don’t get in any trouble!” Her face and chest were pressed up to his back. “Please, I don’t want them to take you to jail!”

“This  _fucker_  is going to jail!” Grady hollered, although he hadn’t meant to do so at her. He kicked the guy in the back of the legs, twice. “You hear that? You better fuckin’ run, you better thank your goddamn sorry stars she’s a better man than you’ll ever be!”

“Oh,  _Grady_!” Jazz was pulling on him now, he realised, and, still grimacing at the thought of what he had seen and what  _could_  have happened, had he not wished to see her so bad, he turned around and found himself in the midst of a hug.

He drew in a deep breath and held it, taking it all in. He had to smile, had to, she was so damn small and he was so big, she felt perfect. A little hug bug. He laughed inwardly at himself, knowing how damn stupid that sounded, but it just came to him. “You okay, little bit?”

“I’m a little scared, but I’ll be fine.” Her grip on him tightened. “Thank you, Grady.”

“It’s no thing, don’t worry about it. What do I gotta do so you won’t be scared? I don’t want you to be scared.”

“I want to go inside,” she said, already reaching up to climb down into FURY. Grady followed after her and closed the front hatches, and when he came to his usual spot, there she was, holding her blanket up. She tucked it around the both of him and nestled right up to him, and his heart may’ve stopped. Yet again, she just fit. “Thank you.”

“You ain’t gotta thank me for shit I’m supposed to do,” he told her, hypnotised because he could feel her bare arm under his fingertips–how on Earth did she manage to have skin so soft?

“Not everybody would have seen it that way,” Jazz pointed out, and he scoffed.

“Then that ain’t no sort of man, little bit. Hey. You safe. You know that?”

With a bright smile, she nodded against his chest. “I’m fine right where I am.”

Grady knew he was staring, knew he probably looked as stupid and goofy as he felt, but he was humbly unable to do anything about it. Then those sweet, beautiful eyes closed, and, when she kissed him, he gasped against her lips.

“I didn’t know how else to tell you.” She was blushing, so Grady touched her face like he could rub it away.

“Tell me what?”

“…That I wanted to do that.” She tucked her face against him to hide.

Grady just laughed. “You ain’t serious.”

“I am, too. Has nothing to do with–what happened. Just now.”

“I think you’re perfect,” he said, tucking two big, undeserving arms around his little miss. “You’re safe. I’ll always keep you safe. I don’t wanna let you outta my sight.”

“Grady?”

“Yeah, honey?”

She sighed softly, happily. “Kiss me.”

So there he was, standing at the top of the world, a precious little woman wrapped up nice and warm with him, and he had her permission, no, her demands that he kiss her and keep on kissing her. Him, Grady Travis, native of Grady, Arkansas, where there wasn’t nothing but the prison, parents too exhausted and fed up to think any further for a better name for their son. Kissing Jazz. Angharad Gallegher.

He was still there, still kissing Jazz, a while later, when the main hatch opened up and Gordo started to whoop and holler like a damn kid.

“Daddy, come see!”

Don peeked in, then cursed. “Damn it, Coon Ass.”

“What have you two been doing, eh?” Gordo reached in with both hands and swatted at them playfully.

“I’ll have you know, you great big bastard,” Grady began to unravel himself from the blanket and poor Jazz, who didn’t deserve to be a spectacle. “While y'all were watchin’ a damn movie, I had to pull a sumbitch off our bow gunner. He was tryin’ to do something to her, and she was screamin’ at him to leave her alone.”

“ _The hell you say_?” Don’s voice echoed painfully.

“What I said, Top!” Grady made sure Jazz was securely hidden behind himself and stood through the hatch.

“I don’t see a fuckin’ body,” Don said, his face and ears gone red. He pulled his sidearm. “Who the hell was it?”

“Jazz?” Gordo scrambled to the driver’s hatch and climbed in awkwardly to get to his friend. “¡Hijo de perra! ¿Qué te hizo? ¡Lo mato! ¡Lo matamos! ¿Estás bien? ¿Quién fue, pequeña? ¿Sabes quién es?”

She reached for his outstretched hand and took it, rubbing her thumb over his cracked knuckles. “Gordo, estoy bien.”

With his other hand, Gordo slammed against the heavy back of his seat. “¿Qué estaba haciendo aquí? ¡Chingada madre! ¿Te asustó?”

“Gordo, no pasó nada!” She smiled at him reassuringly, still rubbing his hand.

“Pequeña, ¿estás segura?”

“Travis llegó a tiempo, Gordo, estoy bien.”

Gordo looked over at Grady, who’d crouched down again to get a sense of what was happening, then back to Jazz. He scratched behind his ear, then squinted at her. “Espera, ¿estás- estás hablándome en Español?”

Jazz shrugged sheepishly. “¿Sí?”

He laughed. “¡Estás hablando Español!

"Hey! American tank driver, American tank bow gunner!” Don shouted. “Grady, I still don’t see a fuckin’ body.”

“I’m fine!” Jazz insisted.

“She made me let him go,” Grady said.

“She  _made_  you? This little toothpick  _made_  you?”

“Hey!”

Grady grew even more frustrated and stood face to face with his commander. “She said no, I kicked his ass and told him to leave. She didn’t wanna be alone and didn’t need to be. If I had a single one of you to fuckin’ help me, maybe there would be a body.”

“Oh, well we fiddinta make this right, right  _now_ ,” Don said sternly. “Come on, Coon Ass. We gonna find this son of a bitch. Gordo, watch her close. Boyd!”

“What’s the matter, Top?” Boyd called from across the way, just now making it back.

“We got us a pervert to skin alive. You gonna help?”

“I’m okay!” Jazz insisted.

“Aw, shit. Get me my gun,” Boyd shouted.


	4. Chapter Three

The rule was to never speak of it, ever, and so they didn’t. Under cover of darkness, Grady and Don dropped something heavy into one of the mass graves due to be paved over the next day. Surreptitiously, every member of Fury’s crew watched the concrete being poured the next morning, watched the construction crews level the mixture. It was to serve as the foundation of a new bomb shelter. They drank coffee so hot steam rose off it and touched their noses. 

Bradley Parpia seemed to have disappeared in the middle of the night, along with two of the German POWs. Lieutenant Parker swore for weeks, called the kid a fucking traitor. Who knew where they’d gotten of to, what information the kid had managed to spirit away with when he defected.

Grady escorted Jazz all over the place, now, was always this hulking figure trailing beside her, frowning deeply at everyone else. Once had been too many times to leave her by herself in this fucking den of wolves. He felt like he was a bad man, he’d known he was a bad man, but he would never have stooped so low. It just kept playing in his head continuously, that fucker kissing her.  _I told you to leave me alone! Get **off**  of me! Go away! _It burned him up inside.

“Grady? Grady?”

He heard that sweet voice saying something different, now, right beside him, and he was back to the present. He put his hand on her back, guided her carefully. “You okay, Jazz.”

“Yeah, of course I am!” She put her arm around him, best she could, all shrimpy as she was. She was insistent, persistently insistent, that that act of violation had not affected her. Their stride didn’t match, he kept having to slow down for her. She smiled bigger, wider, now that she knew she had his attention. “I’m saying, it’s dark.”

Grady looked around, nodding. There was hardly a bit of the place that was hooked up with lights at night. There were fires here and there, but that was it, and more for warmth and to make food than for the illumination. Bombing hazard. “Yeah, it is. You tired?”

She scoffed playfully. “Sure, yeah, that’s why I’m leading you away from the tank, away from everyone else.”

“Oh. That what you’re doing?” Grady tried to peer down at her face through all that dark. 

“Why yes, it is.” Jazz pulled, and he followed. Anywhere she went, he’d go, she knew that. He’d told her enough times, or had he? Grady was anxious with desire to repeat those words.

Alone, away, apart. Camp was that way, and here were they. 

She always had a way, always, to find little places like this, though how or when she did, he didn’t know. Maybe she was guided by some invisible meridian. The last of the fireflies were letting themselves be known, and Grady watched Jazz’s eyes, her smile, following those soft, blinking points of light. He asked Boyd once, what made him think of all these things just by looking at her. 

Boyd had shrugged. “ _Nothing, Grady. Just love, is all.”_

Yeah, he did. Love her, that is. He knew it just as he knew she was standing just beside him. Ever since the  _incident_ , he hadn’t spent a lot of time with here where it wasn’t just pure concern for her wellbeing, an overwhelming sense of fright of what would happen to this beautiful flower, how it would trampled, its petals bruised and plucked if he did not save it. 

He wanted to, he really did  _want_  to. . .

“Grady!” Jazz was waving her hand in his face, and he could hear the slightest edge of irritation in her voice, because he wasn’t paying attention, again. She looked at him that way people often did, that sigh, the slight roll of their eyes as they gave up on him. Again.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “Just got to thinking.”

She smiled a bit then, his sweet Jazz, and squeezed his hand. “You and me gotta talk.”

He shook his head. “We can’t talk about that.”

“No, not that.” Jazz blushed. She shook her head. “I don’t even want to think about  _that_. But, somewhere in between, there was you and me, and I just wanted to know, to actually hear it from you, if that was just a mistake.”

Now he was all attention, standing up straighter, his eyes going wide. “It wasn’t no mistake. Not to me.”

She smiled a half smile. “I didn’t think it was either, it’s just. . .maybe you didn’t want to, after all the trouble.”

Grady furrowed his brow as he thought that over carefully, what that meant. “You didn’t make no trouble. You did nothing. None of that--I wanted to kiss you ages before. I didn’t go to the movie so I could just sit and listen to you talk a while. That’s why I went back. That’s why I was there at all.”

Now she smiled, really smiled, all straight, even teeth, pretty as a picture. “I want us to move on from that, you and me. We’re going to be okay, it’s all behind us now. You don’t have to be scared about hurting me, Grady, you never have.”

“I treated you bad,” he said, narrowing his eyes at the memory. “Real bad. Back in the beginning.”

“You know what I meant,” she said. Her fingers rubbed up his arm, just warm, gentle fingers, leaving dust of gold in their wake. She touched his face and he didn’t have a choice but to look at her.

“I wished I could take all that back,” Grady barely whispered. “It’s what I always do, I mess things up, treat people like dirt.”

“Grady, you treat me like Cleopatra, a fucking queen.” Jazz came closer, moved so that both her arms were behind his back, holding him there. “Now, that’s just a fact. You know that.”

“Trying to be better. Not fight so much, not be so much of a dickhead, all the time. Trying not to push folks so hard. Just. . .be a better man.”

She hugged him in earnest now, uncaring of the way oil, grease, blood, mud, and who knew what else permanently stained the front of his tanker coat. She ran her hand through his hair, not caring that it was virtually the same--although he  _had_  been showering a lot more regularly. He didn’t mean to be so passive, it just felt as though the second he touched her, there would be some mark on her that would never leave. 

There was nothing more absolving than Jazz Galagher’s touch, though. Nobody’d ever made him feel so trusted and at ease, before. No one had ever treated him so well, just like a person, but she went even further than that, treated him like a good man, the type of man he’d be proud of being. 

“Jazz?” He cleared his throat. “Angharad?”

“Yeah?” she whispered in a smooth, quiet, happy voice. 

“I love you. I do.” He was the one that pulled her closer. He was the one looking at the last flash of the fireflies beyond her, how they almost seemed to suggest a halo around her pretty head. He kissed her forehead, arms carefully sealing her inside of not just an embrace, but this permanent corner of his heart. “I don’t want to leave this war without you with me. I  _promise_  you, I’ll figure out how to give you a really good life. Keep treating you like Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile. You know, there’s this tiny little spot in Arkansas called Egypt?”

“Are you asking?” Jazz whispered, her voice full and rich with sound.

“Yes,” Grady said, because it was the only way he could figure it could be done. He wasn’t a nice man or a nice-looking one that had a ring and could get on one knee in front of her. He could just hold her and make his promises and work hard his whole life to make them come to fruition. Work was what he knew. He swallowed. “Please?”


	5. Chapter 5

Jazz chose Gordo as her ‘man of honour’. Boyd and Don stood on the other side of Grady, smiling, dressed well, for once, when he married the girl of his dreams. It was a short ceremony, and every apple blossom west of the Mississippi was used to decorate the sanctuary, along with sprays of flowers he didn’t know the names of, white bunting, and their initials.

She’d been planning the day for a year or more, since he’d asked her among the distant explosions of bombshells and glowing lights of lightning bugs. Before the ceremony began, Grady was standing up at the front with his best men and his uncle, their officiant, his hair grown out to its full thickness and waviness, dressed in a suit that felt unusual to him after so long in filthy coveralls. He was looking out at all the people that had come, his family and hers, the family they had made overseas. On top of every pedestal throughout the place was a die-cast miniature tank, the kind that kids played with, and they would’ve looked out of place by far, at anyone else’s wedding. Not theirs.

He startled, like he always did at loud noise when the church organ played the loud opening notes of the bridal march, and his heart felt like it was thudding heavy, painful, like when he felt a blast rock FURY. Then he saw her. All in white. Her dress was long and so lacy, her veil transparent enough for him to see her smile at him. Grady had to hold his breath and really coach his face to remain still, for his tears not to fall. She was just so pretty, but he didn’t want to embarrass her or himself, for that matter, so he stood straighter and waited for her and her father to make it down the aisle to him.

What made it a lot easier not to cry was the sight of Gordo coming up behind her, followed by an assortment of her cousins and Don’s new wife. Someone had given him a fucking top hat again, and a cane, and he was only a little drunk, sure, but still a spectacle all on his own. He was throwing fistfuls of apple blossom and rose petals up into the air, looked for all the world as though he were joyously giving away his own baby sister.

They made Grady’s uncle refer to her as Jazz, not Angharad.

“I, Grady, take thee Jazz…”

“I, Jazz, take thee Grady…”

Grady was barely able to keep up with the events, they came so quick and fluttered together in his mind with hardly any order. Next thing he knew, Don and Boyd were giving him light shoves towards his bride, and that was it. Unable to resist (he’d  _told_  her so many times this is what he was going to do), Grady picked up his little missus like it was no thing and had her up in his arms when he kissed her. Aside from some general tutting of old aunties and busy-bodies, there was a small crowd of applause when Uncle David presented the new Mr. and Mrs. Travis to their guests.

All his life, he’d never believed there’d be something so special in it just for him. Jazz was crying, he noticed, as they left the church, but still looked so happy, so he just smiled wider at her, squeezed her hand, and  it was all better by the time they cut their cake. There was another little tank on top, complete with FURY stenciled on the cannon, along with the little bride and groom figures he’d carved and painted himself.

Their first dance as man and wife, of course, was set to “I’ll Be With You In Apple Blossom Time”. Grady liked it better when she sang it, and he knew he wasn’t any good at dancing, but he’d become pretty damn good at holding onto Jazz, over the past year, and that was mainly what it entailed. Mostly he cared about not hurting her, not stepping on her feet or pulling her hair or something else clumsy and awful. He pulled her veil over both their heads and kissed her softly, slowly, as they danced, so careful.

Her dance card was full, after that. She danced with her daddy, twice with Don, four times with laughing, grinning Boyd, and at least eight with Gordo. Grady watched her every move, or, at least, it felt as though he did. That one there was the only one he had eyes for, the one that’d fixed his life, made him sit down and learn about all the laws and benefits there were for veterans, now. She gave them a life that he’d work to keep, give her the best of everything, give their children the best of everything. There was a farm, and cattle, and plenty of land, and equipment to work it. There’d be a few more years before she was done with nursing school, but it made Jazz happy, so Grady was happy, too.

By eight in the evening, she was looking exhausted. Those with children had already taken them home, and things were winding down. Grady took his wife by the hand again and looked at the flowers in her hair.

“You gonna sing it for me?” he asked.

Jazz gave him one of those slanted grins of hers and a bit of a wink. “Depends. Whatcha gonna do for me?”

Utterly enchanted, Grady took a moment to answer. “Anything,” he said. Their guests were waving them goodbye, now. Gordo, Don, and Boyd all had their own little FURY tucked against their sides. Grady opened the door for her, JUST MARRIED in neat script on the rear windshield. “Anything. Anything you tell me, for the rest of my life.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! You can find this and a lot more at my tumblr, warmommy.tumblr.com!


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